The deal bolstered its efforts to attract more advertisers and publishers to buy and sell advertising through electronic trading desks known on Madison Avenue as "programmatic."

The company, which owns the Huffington Post news website and the TechCrunch blog, reported a 23% rise in advertising revenue in the fourth quarter due to higher sales of premium ad formats, such as video, through its "programmatic" platform.

Revenue from AOL's Third Party Network sales, which includes sales from the "programmatic" platform, rose 63% in the quarter, accounting for a third of total revenue.

The company's total revenue rose to $679m in the fourth quarter to the end of December from $599.5m a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected revenue of $655.8m, according to Thomson Reuters.